


Though Hell Should Bar the Way

by Relia



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-22
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2018-10-09 11:02:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10410705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Relia/pseuds/Relia
Summary: It was a shit plan, as these things went — but that was the truth of crime as Zero knew it.  No criminal ever filled his belly on the spoils of well-made plans.  Easy marks were rare.  Living meal to meal meant getting used to breaking into houses with nothing but your wits for an escape plan, or waylaying carriages with no idea what was inside.  Living meal to meal meant embracing madness in the face of desperation, of simple, driving human need.  Krakenburg was simply madness on a larger scale.=====Leo and Niles, and the progression of their relationship.  To love someone is to learn to know them: day by day, word by word, secret by secret.Rating and tags will be updated in further chapters.





	1. A Ghostly Galleon Tossed Upon Cloudy Seas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [prodigy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/prodigy/gifts).



The moon was high in the heavens when they moved on Castle Krakenburg: an ill omen. She was no friend to the silent, the stealthy; thieves and bandits alike knew that a long, moonless night was best for clandestine maneuvers, when the shadow that covered Windmire was dark and deep. Nohr in the dark was a dangerous place for the good, gods-fearing folk of the blighted kingdom. Nohr well-lit was a dangerous place for people like Zero and his kin.

A bright evening. Zero pulled his hood closer around his face, the rough, tattered fabric darkening his silhouette. His shadow spread across the ground like spilled grog. They raced across the inner courtyard like idiots, the four of them; and the wind, howling, spurred them on. From tree to tree across the long orchard they went, dried leaves crunching beneath their feet — and if the snapping of twigs underfoot cut sharp in their ears, the wind, mercifully, carried that evidence safely away too.

They’d robbed nobles’ houses before. Sometimes a client was paying for something in particular, and sometimes the haul was whatever they could carry. Most of it, Zero was certain, was replaced in the space of a day. There were always more nobles they could rob, more houses whose purloined goods could feed the lot of them for a few weeks.

Krakenburg was different. Krakenburg was the prize.

It was Shifty who’d taken the challenge, cast out into the noisy tavern like a bear trap baited with nothing but half-rotted cheese. _We’ll be_ famous _, Zero,_ he’d said, clapping Zero on the shoulder. _No more small jobs after this. No more shit grog and rats in the bedding. We do this and the Hob Street gang has to give up their territory and move on somewhere else. We do this and we’re_ out _, eh?_

There was no backing down after Shifty had already taken up the bet. That was as good as giving the Hobbers what little territory the Alleycats had managed to carve out for themselves over the years. It was as good as starving — or as good as going back to work that wouldn’t pay well for a man with one eye who was old enough now for his face to grow stubble. They took the bet and tied each of their fates to it, four worthless lives like scraps of cloth twisting in the wind.

Mudpie got them a map of the place. Wormhole scouted the grounds to learn their security formations. Zero bribed a pair of guards to let them in.

From there, the plan was brutally simple.

Get in, steal something from the throne room, and get back out with whatever else they could carry.

It was a shit plan, as these things went — but that was the truth of crime as Zero knew it. No criminal ever filled his belly on the spoils of well-made plans. Easy marks were rare. Living meal to meal meant getting used to breaking into houses with nothing but your wits for an escape plan, or waylaying carriages with no idea what was inside. Living meal to meal meant embracing madness in the face of desperation, of simple, driving human need. Krakenburg was simply madness on a larger scale.

Another branch snapped underfoot. They reached the edge of the orchard and had to make a long, terrifying dash across an empty courtyard to gain the castle walls.

They hefted Mudpie, the lightest, up through a window, and she dropped them down a rope: and then they were in.

“Keep watch, Zero,” Shifty said, clapping him on the shoulder. “We’ll bring you back something shiny.”

They didn’t.

#

Less than five minutes had passed when the castle sent up the alarm: a long, slow bleat of a horn filling up the night. It didn’t sound like it had come from the throne room, though Zero could hear the pounding of armored feet headed in that direction. What the hell had happened?

 _Shit_ was the invective on the tip of Zero’s tongue, the only word appropriate to the situation: but thieves learned quickly not to mutter, so Zero kept his commentary to his own mind and bled himself deeper into the shadow of a big stone window. He considered his options. He listened, trying to get his bearings in the new circumstances. And then he saw them, flying across the courtyard, clear and stark in the moonlight — Shifty, Mudpie, and Wormhole. They hadn’t even tried to come back for him.

The bow was in his hand and the arrow trained to Shifty’s fleeing back before Zero could so much as consider what he was doing. This was street cruelty, and Zero was no stranger to it. Survival meant repaying what had been dealt to you in kind, no matter the circumstances. Shifty had turned his back on Zero. He would not do so again.

 _”You there!”_ someone shouted from behind Zero, but too late: the arrow flew.

Zero turned to see guards, then did the only sensible thing; he ran the other way.

The guards were young and in good health, but so was Zero, for a given definition of it. Their heavy armor would slow them, surely, as would the taxing effort of pursuing without knowing which way the quarry would turn. The guards that patrolled these hallways knew them well as defensible or indefensible positions. Zero had little experience of them first-hand — but he had studied the map Mudpie had gotten, and he knew these halls not as chokepoints but as escape routes. Thieves saw different things in a blueprint than soldiers did. In spite of everything, he still had a pretty good chance.

The wind was still high, carrying the detritus of dead leaves through open windows to flutter in his face, but all he heard was the howl of it, the incredible sound: Krakenburg’s deep construction made a strange wind bowl of the place, with sounds like the distant cry of dragons all around. A twig snapped underfoot, but he barely caught the crunch. If he wasn’t fleeing for his life, he might have found it strange — difficult for a twig to make its way this far indoors — but in that moment, it didn’t register in the list of his top concerns.

The tree root he tripped over a few seconds later did. His foot caught on a root in the middle of the wooden floor and he went flying, the weight gone out from under him. Zero tried for a somersault, to pull himself back out of the tumble and into a run, but something caught his ankle, and he fell forward instead. The floorboards met his face hard, gravity particularly unrelenting.

“Enough,” said a soft, tenor voice from behind him.

Zero twisted on the ground, his ankle still caught, and went for an arrow. Most of them had clattered free of his quiver in the fall.

When he tried to nock it, however, Zero suddenly found his hands bound — no, overgrown. The arrowshaft and the wood of his bow had both burst hideously to life in his hands, shooting off branches and leaves in full blossom that snaked up his forearms and made a snare of his own weapon. _Magecraft._

“I said, _enough_ ,” the tenor spoke again. Zero looked up to find his quarry and his captor: a young boy with rumpled clothes and mussed hair, the slight sheen of sweat catching blue moonlight on his pale skin. He held a fierce-looking tome in one hand, and the deep purple light that struck him from underfoot gave a demonic cast to his pretty, angelic features.

He was fifteen, maybe sixteen at a stretch, with a proud, pouty expression that tempted a man to cruelty. A bit old for the streets, but with his fair face, he’d have still made good money that way even into his twenties. (Zero had aged out earlier. The eye was too off-putting.) All of this Zero observed with a calm detachment as he puzzled over how he was going to get free with only the use of one foot.

Magecraft was a terrifying thing, beyond the grasp of most mortal men. He was probably not going to get free, not this time. He was probably going to die here.

The thought was strangely peaceful.

The boy mage approached him, flanked by two guards. They hauled Zero up onto his knees, still entangled. His ankle twisted. The mage stooped to the ground to pick something up and hold it to the light: one of Zero’s fallen arrows. It, too, had sprouted a few budding branches.

He regarded Zero for a long moment.

“A one-eyed archer,” the boy scoffed. That was the way of youth, Zero supposed: they puffed themselves up like this to seem impressive. “Little wonder your friends were eager to leave you behind.”

Zero smiled back, his teeth bloody from his nosebleed. “And here I thought it was my sparkling personality,” he replied.

There was a pause before the little mage recovered himself. “One can scarcely doubt it.” He turned a few pages in his book; Zero wondered what spell he was seeking out. Finely manicured fingers moved over the pages, fingernails white and never cracked. Had he spilled blood, this little lordling? Did he know what it felt like squelching between his fingers, drying slightly tacky between his lips? Did he know how surprisingly tenacious it was about getting into all the crevices of his hands?

“Well?” the mage commented when Zero didn’t answer. “It’s treason to steal from the king. Say your piece. Account for yourself.”

Zero shrugged. It wasn’t in him to beg for his life. Not from this would-be man, and not like this. Instead he soldiered onward, still grinning. Still himself to the last, he hoped. “I haven’t stolen anything. Search every little inch of my body, if you like.”

This shot told. The boy flushed light pink and stopped turning pages. He regarded Zero with fresh irritation. It was a little delicious, if Zero was being honest: one last savory morsel of highborn discomfort for him to enjoy, here at the end of things. He made a show of licking the blood from his teeth, and the boy narrowed his eyes. “So you’d like a lighter sentence for being a _poor_ thief?”

And here it was, however unceremoniously. His chance to ask, placed right in front of him. His moment to plead for clemency or to give in to the greater temptation: the call of the void. The thing that had been waiting for him around every corner since childhood with a crooked finger, the thing that vanished the moment he got almost to the bottom of every bottle, and taunted him with sleep only to spurn him again with waking. The oblivion that had yet to stay and make an honest man of him. The one thing that stirred lust in his loins from his own fear, rather than someone else’s. He could run from this haunted oasis in his desert or cool his throat in its waters, and no one had ever existed who cared which he chose. 

He would die, at least, seizing this choice for himself. He’d die knowing.

“Not at all, your lordship. By all means — grant me the pleasure of the punishment I’ve earned.” His gaze was sharp and clear, and for this one moment, serious. Let it be like that. Let that be the face he showed to death, when he finally gave up keeping it waiting. “ _Please_.”

Alas that death, today, wore the face of a hapless boy with no palate for the exquisite finale Zero was offering it.

There was confusion on his young, untried face. He ruined the moment thus: “You wish to be killed?” Zero only stared at him with that same beseeching expression, that same intense look. “ _Why?_ ”

But it was too late. He’d ruined the fineness of it, the gracefulness. So Zero just smiled at him again, and punished him for his uncooperativeness by giving the boy an answer he wouldn’t understand: a true one.

“There’s a moment, little lordling. There’s a moment, when the blood flows out of you, where it feels like the sweetest release you’ve ever known. A cut like that is a night with a thousand lovers. Perhaps someday, when someone pierces you for the first time, you’ll understand what makes it worth begging for.”

The boy’s cheeks turned a deep, ruddy scarlet and he took a visible step back, like Zero might be contagious. His chest rose and fell with what had to have been a rapidly hammering heartbeat — what sheltered creatures these noble children were! — and he held his tome closer to his chest, like it might protect him in the event that severe poverty did turn out to be catching after all.

“You will address me as _‘Prince Leo,’ ‘your Highness,’ ‘Lord Leo,’_ or _‘my lord,’_ ” he eventually said in a stiff voice, dry-throated. “I am not your _lordling._ ” He huffed, and muttered, “That’s not even a proper term.”

“As your Highness wishes,” Zero said with both eyebrows raised. He wasn’t sure what the boy — _Prince Leo_ , as it turned out, one of Garon’s younger get — expected to use as leverage to force his compliance in this regard. Zero had already been sentenced to death and accepted the ruling gladly. Would he threaten to piss on Zero’s corpse if he didn’t use proper forms of address? Life in Windmire’s gutters had long since robbed Zero of any sentimentality regarding corpses, his own included.

Leo stared at him. He seemed young, Zero decided, for such scrutiny. “I’m unimpressed by melodrama,” Leo explained. Zero felt his giant, glowing purple book called this statement into question, but didn’t say so. If the prince wanted to dissect Zero a bit before performing the execution, let him do it. Zero could bear one more entitled noble’s pawing with hard-won indifference to the intrusion. “Even the meanest and most terrible life has value. I don’t believe you.”

“Then kill me for a thief and a liar,” Zero told him, his smile growing weary. “It doesn’t matter.”

Leo crossed his arms over his chest, the tome folded beneath them. “I decide that,” he pronounced, his tone cooling. “Not you. You’ve forfeited that right.”

Zero laughed, ugly.

Leo ignored it.

“Tell me what your life is like, as a criminal.”

Ah. The inevitable live dissection. Zero looked down, pointedly, and then back up, smile never faltering. “Surprisingly hard on the knees.” He was beatific.

“That isn’t what I mean.”

“Isn’t it?”

“What sorts of crimes do you commit?” Leo redirected him.

“Whatever’s paying. I ransomed a chicken, once.” Zero couldn’t say it was a fond memory — he had no fond memories, really — but it was at least a funny one. That chicken had been the devil’s own kin.

Leo was unimpressed with the notion of the chicken ransom. Pity for him; it was a pretty good story. “So you do commit crimes for profit, then.”

Zero cocked an eyebrow. “All crime’s for profit in one way or another, highness,” he pointed out. “The only difference is who came up with the idea.”

The pretty, brandy reds of Leo’s eyes rolled in their sockets. “Breath of Anankos, I’ve arrested a _pedant_ ,” he scoffed.

“Oh come now, you can’t be _that_ young —”

The branches that bound him grew suddenly, tightening around his wrists. “I’m not. That young,” Leo said crisply, pale rather than the crimson he’d turned before. “The word you’re thinking of is _pederast_. Now, do you work for money or not?”

Zero shrugged. “It’s easier than crimes of opportunity.”

Leo hesitated; Zero marked it. “So you would work for me, if I paid you.”

Well, well, well.

Zero had disliked this pampered little doll before, when he was only incapable of viewing people like Zero as human. Now he had reason to despise him.

Pretty Prince Leo wasn’t interrogating him about the value of all human life, even the meanest and most terrible. He was hiring him for something underhanded that he didn’t want to stain his soft hands with.

The smile Zero offered him was wicked and hateful.

“And what dirty deed does a prince need done? A quiet knife between someone’s ribs?”

Leo balked visibly and took another step back. It took him a moment, but he caught himself, straightened his spine, and resumed his place. “If I needed someone killed,” he corrected sharply, “I’d ask the assassin who works for my sister — not some depraved burglar. Highwayman. Whatever you are.”

“Outlaw?” Zero suggested.

“I’m offering you honest work for honest pay,” he insisted. “You’ll work in my employ as my personal retainer.”

As his . . . retainer. Short of the continuing belief that there was some darker purpose Leo had for Zero in this arrangement, he didn’t know what to make of it. Perhaps the younger prince simply wanted some rebelliously dangerous manservant he could flaunt to his older siblings. Or perhaps Zero was to be some sort of scapegoat for some scheme down the road. This time it was his turn to ask: “ . . . _Why?_ ”

Leo looked at him like he was about to accuse Zero of not being a pederast again. “You’re welcome to decline,” he said. “If you’re so set on dying, my father and my brother will be back in two days, and they’ll be happy to sort you out.”

Zero shook his head, still disbelieving. “Far be it from me to question my hangman’s tenderest of mercies —” Leo rolled his eyes again. “— but do you really mean to tell me you plan to hire a perfect stranger as your personal bodyguard? Isn’t that a bit stupid?”

If the prince had any objections to the ways Zero had spoken to him (and clearly he did), none was more evident than the resentment on his face in response to being called _stupid_.

“Listen —” Leo paused, squinting as though rifling through his memory for some forgotten fact. “What was your name?”

“Zero.”

“ _Zero?_ ”

“That’s what they call me.”

“ _Anankos wept._ ”

Zero crooked a smile. “Problem, my lord?”

Leo pouted a little, in his irritation. It was almost charming. “Certainly there’s a problem. Zero is _not a name._ I can hardly introduce you to my father as, ‘Hello, Father, this is my new retainer, he’s called _the number zero.’_ You can’t tell me your mother named you a number. Even in the Flame Tribe, they don’t have such customs.”

“No, my lord, certainly you’re correct — I can’t tell you that. If my mother named me anything, or ever was a member of the Flame Tribe, she didn’t stay around long enough to let me in on the secret. She never called me Zero.”

The prince looked a little uncertain about the territory he was walking into, now: but credit his pride or his nerve, he kept going. “Who, then?”

Zero cocked his head to one side and gave him the answer. “Someone with a keen eye for value.”

“Very funny.”

“Yes, he thought so.”

“Was he the man you shot in the back?”

“ . . . Beg pardon?”

Leo looked toward the nearest window, where moonlight was still streaming in. “Out in the courtyard. The man you shot.”

A wave of black pleasure coursed through Zero’s veins; he couldn’t help it. It was always satisfying to know that one of his arrows had struck true. He let out a contented breath.

“So, was that him?”

Zero blinked. “What? No, that was just Shifty.”

“ _ **Shifty.**_ ”

“Are our nicknames really so scandalous to you, highness? This seems to be a sticking point.”

Leo craned his head back, Zero was certain, just for the purpose of better looking down his nose at him. “No — they’re idiotic. They sound like something my little sister would dream up.”

“Does _she_ need a retainer?”

Leo glared. “No. That’s disgusting.”

“I have no idea what you mean,” Zero insisted. The young prince really was terribly easy to ruffle — and his red face was a thing to behold. It almost made his strange offer tempting . . . not, of course, that Zero was given to being a particularly trusting soul. On the face of it, it could certainly be quite fun to play transgressive little tin soldier for a while, to lope around the castle like the high-born folk and eat their well-sauced foods — but nothing ever really turned out to be what it looked like on the face of it. And that never worked out well for the poor folks caught in the middle of it, the expendable gutter trash like Zero, did it? “You still haven’t answered my question. You have two perfectly obedient little candidates right here,” he said, with glances at the two helmeted soldiers that still flanked him. “Why hire, as you so excitingly put it, some depraved burglar?”

There was a slow hiss of breath as Leo reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. However exactly he’d envisioned himself propositioning his would-be prisoner into becoming his manservant — and Zero did wonder, at that, what exactly the plan for this chat had looked like in Leo’s mind — this conversation was clearly not going according to scheme. He felt a pang of amused pity for the machinations of the young, idiotic and naive. “Zero,” Leo finally said, clearly at some great pains to dignify this as a name. “These men are my father’s soldiers, and steadfast in their duties to him — as they should be. My father is a warrior. My brother is a warrior. They take warriors into their service. But I am not a warrior, and I do not require warcraft. I’m a sorcerer. Spycraft is what suits my needs. People used to working in the dark.”

 _Spycraft_ , Zero thought, turning this over in his mind. _Maybe._ And maybe it was the other thing he’d said without saying it, too: King Garon’s men were loyal to Garon. Anyone noble-born or military-raised would be. Perhaps little Prince Leo had ambitions of a retainer whose loyalties belonged solely to him. It wasn’t so very long ago that succession wars had raged among the royal house, after all, the king’s concubines poisoning each other and their children for primacy. Perhaps upward ambitions still flourished, if more quietly. Perhaps Leo was that sort of a prince.

It all sounded like the hellish grind of existence, whatever it was. Some part of Zero felt infinitely tired of it all. Some part of Zero would’ve said no no matter what Prince Leo had told him.

Some other tiny part — some miniscule, awful thing that had dragged him through all the miserable years of his life so far — wanted, for some gods-forsaken reason, to live. This was the part of himself that Zero hated most. It was the part that had brought him nothing but torment and pain and fucking and sleep and lies and blood, and somehow kept seeking more of the same.

He hated Leo more than he had ever hated anyone, in that moment, for making him choose. For standing there in his silk shirt with his magic book clutched to his chest, the moonlight cutting him half in light and half in shadow, like he was either a god or a devil for that moment depending on what Zero chose, and Zero wasn’t sure which was which.

He hated him, and he was tired.

“Let me think it over,” he said.


	2. A Coat of the Claret Velvet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He could always die tomorrow, he told himself. For today, he could try this.

Four days later, he met King Garon.

The king and his eldest son returned two days later, as Leo had predicted, but Zero — no, it was _Niles_ now, he was answering to Niles — had seen him only at a distance, and Garon’s eyes with their strangely pale whites had fallen upon him only once in any meaningful way.

It had taken Zero about a day, sitting in the musty reek of Krakenburg’s dungeon, to come around to the decision to take up Leo’s offer. Death that had seemed grand by moonlight, with the rush of his attempted flight to freedom still coursing in his veins, proved itself once again fleeting: sitting in a corner of a dank cell, kicking away curious rats, death felt less urgent and less impressive. It still beckoned, but like a bad liaison, it had missed its moment. Seeking it now felt like so much gormless fumbling: a fantasy for the evening, so much less substantial in the light of day.

He could always die tomorrow, he told himself. For today, he could try this.

He’d fetched the guard with a wolf-whistle, and some declaration of his intentions or another, and eventually, Prince Leo had come. Another guard, just as faceless, stood to one side of him with a torch in hand.

To his credit, the young prince hadn’t minced his footsteps in the muck or twitched his little nose at the smell, though he could’ve. He’d simply said, “ _Ammonium,_ ” when Zero had commented on it. “It’s from the urine, though we try to keep the cells as clean as we can. You’ve made your decision, then?” And like that, Zero had been let out of his cell.

Although he hadn’t been kept in manacles after that — Leo must not have expected him to run — Zero had noticed, for the first day or two, that a guard was never far. They spent most of the time in a series of baffling preparations: all except for a solid two hours spent with a stern old maid scouring a lifetime’s worth of dirt out of Zero’s hair and his flesh. Afterwards, his skin felt deliciously raw and smelled even better.

His new clothes were nondescript: buckskin breeches, a shirt with ruffled sleeves, a black vest and a cravat; but Zero quickly discovered that he’d be allowed to buy his own clothes, and Leo didn’t much care what he wore so long as it wasn’t rags held together by stains and fleas (his words). Summarily, Zero had taken to wearing his shirt collar open and the cravat tied around his waist as a sash, for the time being. It wasn’t clear yet when the time or money to shop were going to be provided to him. Leo had stared a little, confronted with the reality of Zero’s sartorial decisions, but true to his word, he hadn’t complained.

His new master’s interests had seemed focused on things that were more practical.

“I imagine you’ll find it offensive, being asked to change your name,” Leo told him, passing through a doorway. A gallery lay beyond, with paintings of different sizes littering the walls. That was one of those things only truly wealthy people did: they kept whole rooms of their homes just to use the walls. The prince came to a stop, surveying the art before him, and Zero stopped too; but if Leo was marveling at the intricate illusions created by colorful flicks of a brush, all Zero could think was _they put more effort to lighting these paintings than the dungeon_.

The paintings, of course, had worth. They should be seen. Nothing in the dungeon did, or should.

Leo took a breath and continued. “It’s just that you’ll have to have a proper name for Father to accept you. Camilla’s retainer had a different name as well, if that makes any difference to you — Beruka was just something my sister picked out for her. Do you have your letters?”

“Most of them,” Zero said wryly. “And at least one of my numbers, too, we’ve established that.” The truth was, he’d picked up the skill like he did most things — to be a better criminal, to read a map or an intercepted letter — but it had been slow going, sussing the whole matter out for himself, and it was still nothing like the speed a person who’d properly learned could manage it. 

The prince looked a little awkward, like this was less than he’d hoped and slightly more than he’d dreaded. “Yes, well,” he hemmed. “All the people in these portraits had names that would be suitable for you. I thought you could pick out something that you liked.”

Zero raised an eyebrow, casting his glance out over the room again. He pivoted on his ankle, still a bit sore, to look at some of them. Dozens of pale, pristine faces watched impassively from their important, well-lit walls, waiting to know which of their names the gutter trash would choose to steal for himself. “It would just be an alias for you to operate under, so long as you’re in my employ,” Leo said quietly from somewhere behind him, out of the misguided belief that Zero possessed a sense of humanity that needed dignifying.

Zero’s response was a laugh. He turned back. “And how long will that be?” As far as Zero was aware, royal retainers had lifetime appointments. He’d be using whatever alias he chose for the rest of his days — or until whatever other plans the young prince had in store for him came to pass.

Self-important little brat that he was, Zero expected Leo to take the bait and draw himself up to the taunt, level some kind of a threat. What he found, instead, was that Leo looked at him only briefly, then glanced away. No, not away, Zero amended, following the line of his gaze: Leo was looking at one of the portraits. It was some brunette family Zero didn’t recognize, adults and children, all standing around a single chair where their patriarch was seated. “That depends on you,” Leo answered him, his voice too soft to echo even in a room like this.

That had been the first day.

#

On the second day, Nohr’s youngest surviving prince had taken the newly-dubbed Niles to the armory to pick out new weapons. Niles, who was unaccustomed to such a thing as a free meal, was at somewhat of a loss for the sheer breadth of options he was allowed to choose from without paying for them. In the end, he’d tried out several bows for himself and decided on a well-constructed recurve, as well as a few knives to wear at his hip for melee combat. Leo seemed satisfied.

They’d been walking across the courtyard, back to the castle proper, when the heavy horn had sounded from the parapets. Niles didn’t recognize the sound, not yet; but Leo knew it, and he’d cut himself off from what he was saying with a long glance outward toward the battlements to the east. “You’ll have to take swordsmanship lessons. I don’t expect you to carry one if it hinders you, but in a few months I expect we’ll be on a battlefield, and — ”

The horn was different than the alarm they’d sent up two nights ago. This one sounded like something carved from a bull’s horn, the sound carrying long and low and far.

“They’re bringing up the portcullis,” Leo said. “That’ll be Father and Xander, back from their campaign. Wait by the door for me — and try not to look suspicious.”

The heavy cranking of the portcullis echoed across the courtyard as the sounding of the horn died out. Niles, as instructed, found a stone doorway to stand in, leaning himself into the frame. He spun one of his new knives in his hands, looking preoccupied, and turned his head to listen.

One of very few advantages of losing an eye was that, paradoxically, it was useful sometimes in eavesdropping on conversations from surprising removes. Because of the obvious injury, people looking at him tended to assume he wasn’t observing them just because they were barely in his line of sight: but his hearing was keen on that side, and he could just make out the voices of Garon and his retinue from across Krakenburg’s ever-groaning winds.

Leo had gone out to meet his family: a formal bow to his father first, which Garon had answered with a nod — then the young prince had nodded some kind of a greeting to the man standing next to the king, a leek-haired, reedy fellow in what Niles believed to be high sorcerer’s robes — and finally Leo had given his attention to what could only have been the great Prince Xander himself: older but with Leo’s same fair coloring, and well filled into a substantially muscular frame encased in clean black armor.

There were some words exchanged, none terribly interesting, and then Xander had turned to Leo and said, “We heard some thieves managed to breach the palace a few nights ago, but you thwarted their efforts.” His big, gloved hand came up to rest on Leo’s shoulder. “Well done, little brother.”

Leo, who Niles was beginning to see was far more earnest and transparent with people than he meant to be (or much better at feigning that expression, Niles supposed), affected an air of boredom that was easily seen through. “Oh, that was hardly anything. They set off my wards — ”

If Leo had taken Niles into his service with hopes of improving his station, Niles couldn’t see how that ambition was meant to survive the natural obstacle that was Leo’s evident admiration for his sole rival for the post. It was Prince Xander that Leo seemed to focus on while describing the wards he’d cast throughout Krakenburg, rather than silent Garon or the senior sorcerer who stood at his side, all included in the conversation. His burning desire for the crown prince’s approval was all but written on his young face.

“There is one thing, Prince Leo,” the sorcerer said when he’d finished. He tapped his fingers thoughtfully against the side of his face. “We were also told that you took one of these criminals into your service. Is this true?”

Niles went still, listening closely. It had occurred to him already that a young prince like Leo might not actually have the authority to hire him as a retainer, and that Garon could easily order him back to the gallows, but he supposed now he’d find out. Did his little princeling truly have the standing to name his own servants? Even ones who’d broken into the king’s own home?

Leo, though, was clearly prepared for this question. He folded his arms behind his back, straightening his posture further. “Certainly it’s true,” he said, with the smirk audible in his voice. “Father is always saying we should be willing to consider any methods to win the war, and that we shouldn’t discount the contributions of skilled warriors like Hans. I’m prepared to do my part for the glory of Nohr as soon as Father has need of me, and I’ll need skilled men by my side when that time comes. I saw an opportunity, and I took it.”

Xander looked concerned. The sorcerer turned his eyes toward Garon, to see how he was reacting — but Garon had raised his big gray head, framed in his black mantle like a halo of daggers, and looked across the courtyard directly to where Niles was standing, as though his focus had gone straight to the one thing in his household that didn’t belong.

Niles had had enough experiences of powerful men to know when studied idleness was the best way to avoid notice, and when it wasn’t. Now, he held himself perfectly still — the weight of Garon’s red-eyed stare pinning him with the crush of some imagined gravity. Leo’s eyes followed, and Xander’s — and then finally, after the seconds had run long, Garon had turned back to his youngest son.

“Very well,” he’d said. “On your head be it, my son.” That had been the end of the matter.

Garon and the others had gone off to be relieved of their armor, leaving Leo with Niles once more.

“Father accepts you,” Leo said, gesturing for Niles to follow him down a hallway. Niles had thus far experienced the entirety of his duty as Leo’s retainer as being the important task of shadowing the prince from place to place on his daily routine. He supposed, if what Leo said was true, that he’d be expected to do more if they were ever enlisted in the war effort.

Garon had sent his children off to war on his behalf before; that much was common knowledge. It was one of many reasons why he had so few heirs left. Leo seemed confident that Garon would send him off to battle too — but with only the two princes remaining, Niles wondered if even the notorious conqueror would be a bit more careful with the last of his spares.

Niles arched a brow. “So I heard.”

“He’s no one to be trifled with. Neither is his advisor, Iago. Father relies on Iago’s counsel intimately.”

The other eyebrow went up alongside the first. Niles grinned. “How intimately are we talking?”

The look Leo gave him was uncommonly stony. “Don’t. You don’t want their attention. Iago’s a powerful sorcerer, and most of the people in this castle work for him. Mind your manners about both of them.”

“And brother dearest?” Niles said, mainly to judge Leo’s reaction.

He looked flummoxed. “Oh,” he answered after a moment. He squinted at Niles. “Well, he’s not going to appreciate your sense of humor either, if that’s what you’re asking. Listen, if this is going to be a list of people in the palace likely to enjoy your —” Charmingly, he fumbled for a word, looking a little pink. “ — _tavern talk_ , I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

Niles smiled angelically. “Really? Well, what about this Hans, then?”

Leo folded his arms over his chest and frowned.

“Is that a yes?”

The little huffing noise that bubbled up from Leo’s chest was positively petulant. “I could care less who you want to make friends with. If you do your job well, that’s all that matters.”

It was not all that mattered to him. Niles could tell that much. But Leo didn’t seem inclined to come clean about any more of his thoughts; instead, he simply unfolded his arms again and started back down the hallway, expecting Niles to follow. “Come,” he commanded. “I don’t have time to stand around chit-chatting all day. There’s too much to be done.”

This had begun to be noticeable as a habit. Any time a conversation ran long, veering into small talk or offending his delicate sensibilities, Leo withdrew entirely. He spent half his time trying to make sure Niles was satisfied with all the new accommodations he was being provided, and the other half of the time proclaiming his clinical disinterest. In the space of just two days, he’d found an impressive number of different ways to tell Niles to stop talking.

Niles, for his part, was enjoying finding ways to circumvent these requests. Riling up his easily flustered young employer was likely to be the only truly fun part of his job, if Leo’s descriptions of the life of a retainer were to be believed. He took his pleasure where he could.

“Of course, my lord,” Niles told him, exaggeratedly accommodating. “Whatever you require.”

Leo looked over his shoulder to shoot Niles a look that said what he thought of this evident sarcasm. “Ugh. You’re _awful_.”

“Guilty as charged.”

This time, Leo didn’t look back. “Well,” the prince muttered to himself, mollifying. “At least you have good hearing.”

#

On the fourth day after Niles was arrested, Garon hosted a banquet. The day before that had been quiet and dull, and — as Niles eventually came to understand — somewhat typical for Leo’s schedule. They’d spent most of the day in the library, where Leo had opened up his grand purple tome on a large desk, then proceeded to open up at least three other books alongside it, cross-referencing passages or something like it, then taking long notes on a clean sheaf of paper. He’d set Niles in a chair nearby, then handed him a pair of books and left him to his devices.

“See what you make of these,” he’d said.

Leo, he assumed, was studying magic — but the books he’d given Niles were everyday human fare: each one a basic primer on battle formations and high-level military strategy.

Working his way through the first page of one of the books was painstaking enough as it was. Niles’ reading was not well-practiced, and with little context for most of the words the book was using, they were hard to sound out letter by letter. Harder still was trying to do this with Leo’s tome periodically glowing purple in the periphery of his vision, or the way the young prince _harumph_ ed softly to himself whenever he encountered something in one of the books he disagreed with. It was hardly ideal for focus.

He had a respite from this only for a few hours in the afternoon, where Leo explained that he had a magic lesson to attend and dumped Niles unceremoniously at the archery butts to practice with his new bow.

After that, it had been more study. Niles’ new master was a bookworm.

#

On the first day, Niles had been brought up out of the dungeon and given new clothes. On the second day, the king and his son had come back from war. On the third day, Leo had studied. And on his fourth day, Garon hosted a banquet for all the nobles in Windmire — and Niles got in trouble for the first time.

Banquets, in Nohr, were evidently customary for any major occasion at Krakenburg. Everyone attended.

In the adjustment to his new life as an honest working man, Niles had been kept busy for most of his time so far. The people he’d met, Leo aside, had largely been other palace workers. The woman who had washed his hair till it was soft as a rabbit’s fur; the other woman who worked at the armory, her skin hard and cracked from the heat of the forge; the man who came every day to take away Niles’ clothes after he’d only just worn them. This was his first time in the presence of most of the nobility.

King Garon’s seat was the tallest in the room. It was a carved wooden affair, burnished and stained to such a deep black that it looked less like something born of any tree and more like wrought iron. Even at dinner, he sat in what amounted to a throne. Prince Xander and Camilla were at the high table with him, seated at his left hand; the sorcerer Iago and another ferocious-looking man were at his right. The royal retainers stood at their prince and princess’s shoulders.

Xander’s retainer was a noble through and through, and it showed. Her armor, rather than serviceable steel, was polished to a high silver sheen, and her hair was dyed in the ostentatious way of high-born fashion: half pink and half blue. She laughed throatily at something Xander was saying to her as he handed her his goblet to be refilled, and if it gave her any pause to be standing as a servant rather than sitting among her noble kin, she didn’t show it. Niles supposed bodyguard to the crown prince was an enviable position, standing or seated. After all, she _was_ at the high table.

Camilla’s retainer was less obvious. Somber in unadorned black armor, she was nearly easy to miss behind Nohr’s fairest violet flower. While the princess commanded attention, newly into womanhood and clearly testing the bounds of her appeal, her retainer — a former assassin now calling herself Beruka, according to Leo — was nearly invisible behind her chair. Half of this was her size alone; for a trained killer, she looked amusingly no taller than a child. The other half was her demeanor, the sort that street children like Niles had learned for themselves: how to be a shadow in the middle of a room. How to be visibly irrelevant.

She stared at him every so often, that one did. Niles only raised his eyebrows in response, shrugged and shook his head as though to say, _I’m not sure what you’re getting at._

Leo and the youngest princess were at one of the nearby tables to Garon’s left, not quite rating a place at his side. Niles supposed most of the tables near the king must have held all his favored children, once, back when there were dozens of them. Now that there were only a handful, it was probably easier for a boy like Leo to have a place of prominence. Now he was second in line for the throne, outdone only by regal Xander. A few years ago, he probably would’ve been too young and too irrelevant to even sit within earshot, if the size of the room was anything to go by.

The younger princess, yet another of Garon’s blonde children with unblemished skin, seemed deeply unaware of the solemnity of the occasion. She had not one retainer but two: a man who Niles would’ve taken for an actor rather than a genuine soldier, and a young girl with a truly terrifying amount of muscle for her age. However seriously the girl took her duties, Niles assumed the actor was the official retainer, and the young girl merely a trainee. 

Neither seemed particularly enthused about Niles.

Garon — dressed in his full black and gold plate armor and heavy mantle — gave a brief speech before they all ate. It sounded in step with the sorts of speeches he made for the common folk, with no real surprises: some battle or other was won, Nohr was glorious, Anankos was great and wise, and Hoshidans were savages who threatened Nohrian sovereignty. Niles amused himself with the idea of Garon eating his meal while wearing full plate (which, of course, was exactly what Garon ultimately did).

Then, once the king was seated, things became slightly less formal.

Niles was still stuck at his post, standing behind Leo’s chair while the princeling ate, but the room had largely broken off into individual, amicable conversations by this point. The noise was rising to a friendlier, more animated level. Leo sifted through the ridiculous array of plates and silverware in front of him and selected two glasses from the ones in front of him, one filled with wine and one filled with water. He set them both to one side of his plate. “These are yours,” Leo told him with a glance back. “Feel free.”

Growing up on the streets, Niles had cultivated a healthy distrust for water. Water, everyone knew, was only for drinking if you wanted to puke out your innards or shit for days, and then probably die. It was needless in his diet. He reached for the wine and drank gladly.

It was stronger than the wine they served in two-bit taverns. The flavor was keen. Niles supposed in the palace, no one was watering it down to turn a profit.

Best of all, kitchen maids came around regularly to refill his glass.

Leo, Niles noticed, ate quietly even in the bustle of so much conversation. A few nobles tried to engage him, and he answered with what sounded like polite graciousness. Mostly he was reserved, and kept to himself. Little wonder if he was an unpopular heir.

His younger sister had fewer compunctions. She was, in fact, the best entertainment Niles had all evening. She was innocent in the way of all sheltered rich children, and Niles found that irritating — but she also had a way of grilling everyone she spoke to with rapid-fire questions they were often at pains to answer. Her ingenuousness was almost an implement of torture, judging by some of the nobles’ uncertain, pained expressions.

And unlike everyone else, she saw no need to ignore Niles for the entire evening.

Niles wasn’t entirely sure what path in life had led him to this conversation with a child princess, but here they were.

“Are you really Leo’s new retainer?” she asked him.

He smiled over the top of his glass. “Until he shows me the boot.” Niles was currently resting his forearms on the back of Leo’s chair. A few feet below him, Leo _hmph_ ed.

The princess looked alarmed. “Oh, no, he wouldn’t!” she insisted. “He couldn’t, you’re _great_! I like you already! I’d tell Xander and Xander wouldn’t ever let him send you away.” According to her, it was evidently just as likely that Xander would cavalierly safeguard the employment of a criminal he had just met as it was that Leo would dismiss him on a whim. Niles wondered how many of the princeling’s decisions had been countermanded by his dear older brother in the past.

He winked. “I’m very lucky for the great Prince Xander, then. He’s a hero.”

“He is, he is! Do you know him?”

Niles demurred, getting into the flow of the conversation. “Oh, no, only by reputation! A worthless creature such as myself could never have made the acquaintance of the great crown prince of Nohr. Ah, but the rumors of his fearsome deeds in battle are the stuff of common talk, my lady.”

This only seemed to fascinate her further. She’d turned her entire seat to face where Niles was leaning over Leo’s chair, forcing her retainers to stand at a slight pivot to maintain their flank. The beastly little girl at her side was glowering at Niles like he’d just threatened to pry the princess’s fingernails off. The actor looked cautiously optimistic.

“Do the small folk really talk about us so much?”

“Ah,” Niles granted her a knowing smile. “Well, only the juicy bits.”

This seemed far over her pigtailed head. “Do you know who I am, too? Like Xander?”

Here was Niles’ turn to frown, all affected dismay. “Ah, I fear not, my lady. You see,” he leaned in conspiratorially, “there are so many women in King Garon’s seraglio, and there have been so many children, that we’ve all given up keeping track of most of you. And now that he’s stopped bringing glorious Nohrian princes and princesses into the world, people are much more interested in all the mistresses he hasn’t let out into the world recently, and wondering how many of them he might have murdered.”

It was amazing how quickly an entire room full of half-drunk nobles and their servants could fall into a dead quiet. Within the space of a few seconds, a hush had fallen over the room.

“Leo?” the princess squeaked nervously into the silence, staring at her brother. “What does he mean?”

Leo sat utterly frozen beneath where Niles stood.

He, like every other person in the room, was staring at King Garon.

King Garon was staring at Niles.

When he spoke, his voice boomed.

“ _Leo._ ”

Niles had just enough time to step back from Leo’s chair as the prince put down his silverware and shoved back his seat. He stood.

“Go and wait for me by the door,” Leo hissed at him, all ice. He didn’t wait to see if Niles would comply. Already Leo was halfway around the table, making his way to Garon’s side.

Niles went as he was bid.

Garon also stood up. He was a tall man seated at his dinner table, or parading the streets on his horse; but where some men only had the look of height, Garon was truly towering. Coming to stand before him, Prince Leo looked every moment of his tender youth. Xander had gotten his father’s height. If Leo ever would, those days were still far off.

Leo stood before him even so, stock still and obedient. He had one foot braced behind the other, his face upturned to Garon’s wisdom.

It was the only thing that saved him from toppling to the floor when the back of Garon’s gauntleted hand swung at his face.

Garon’s other children, heroic Xander and lovely Camilla, sat staring down at their plates. Xander’s retainer patted him consolingly on the shoulder.

Leo straightened himself up. Long cuts ran across his cheek where his face was already starting to swell.

“A prince’s retainers are a reflection on the man they serve,” Garon instructed, taking his napkin from the table and beginning to wipe Leo’s blood from his armor. “Your servant’s failure is your failure. Teach him some manners.”

Leo nodded: and now he bowed, his chin dripping red onto the flagstones. “Of course you’re correct. Forgive me, Father.”

Garon turned away. “Go and clean yourself up,” he ordered. Leo went.

#

It was Xander that followed them out into the hallway, past a group of kitchen maids who were just bringing out trays of pudding. Niles heard the heavy footfalls and pivoted, a knife half-drawn; but there was the eldest prince in his white cravat and his burgundy vest, his silver-clad knight trailing him, and he barely spared a glance for Niles as he walked past him to grab his younger brother by the shoulders. “Leo,” Xander said, clutching the prince like he might burst into pieces if Xander wasn’t there to keep him together. “What in the hell were you thinking? Hiring someone like this . . . Father could have killed you! If there were any other sons left — ”

The look Leo gave his brother was scathing. “Don’t be so melodramatic. It’s a cut, not a severed limb.” He took an unsteady breath and tried to shrug out of Xander’s grip. “One vulnerary and after an hour you won’t even know.”

Niles knew what someone who got hit on the regular looked like. He’d been struck more times than he could count. There was no chance of Leo falling apart here under Xander’s scrutiny, he thought. After enough beatings, latecomers and their worries were irritating.

Xander looked pained. “I’ll know,” he disagreed quietly. He let Leo brush his hands away, but he looked reluctant.

“Then _know_ ,” Leo said, all challenge. The lacerations across his face looked ugly. Without treatment, they were sure to scar. Deep red was already starting to stain the collar of his shirt, ruining the frothy white beyond any salvage. “Your bleeding heart is your problem, not mine.”

“Just — ” Xander sighed. He looked stricken, like he was considering a number of admonitions and drawing each one back in the face of Leo’s cold expression. 

Leo held up a hand. “I should have instructed my retainer in comportment. Father was right — this was my mistake. I’ll handle it.”

Xander looked at Niles, finally. Niles wondered what he was seeing. Street trash that might stab his little brother in the night? A dog that had eaten off its master’s plate? A new horse that had bucked its rider?

If it was any of these, Xander didn’t say. He turned back to Leo with another long sigh, then reached up to touch the unhurt side of his face. “Take care of yourself, little brother,” he said, letting his hand drop back to his side. “I’ll smooth it over with Father.”

Leo was impassive. Xander stepped back. He looked at Leo for another long moment, then said, “Peri, come.”

“Okay,” the knight said, chipper, and the two of them went back the way they came.

#

The vulneraries they got on the street were expensive, and the bottles came half-full. The liquid was thin, and ran like turpentine through his fingers. Most of it soaked straight into cloth, leaving precious little to settle on the skin. The good stuff was a lot better.

Niles poured it out in small globs, dabbing it here and there on Leo’s messy face, a little fascinated with how well it worked.

“I appreciate your sense of economy,” Leo criticized, trying not to wince as Niles poked at his injuries. “But the palace isn’t going to run out of stock. If you don’t stop rationing like you’re tucking in for the next Hoshidan siege, this is going to scar.”

Leo had handed him the vulnerary and the cloth as soon as they’d gotten to the prince’s rooms, but he hadn’t said anything yet about what had happened. Perhaps, Niles supposed, he was waiting until his own pretty face was all patched up before meting out a correction on Niles’ much less valuable person.

Niles waited for it. Leo had the obvious practice of taking a few slaps from his royal father, but Niles had been beaten by a hundred men for a thousand reasons, and he knew well enough that people hit poor children harder than they did rich ones. It was an old game, and he bided his time. “I don’t know,” Niles said, affecting the same idleness. “A scar could be fetching on you.” He poured out a generous dollop of the magicians’ mixture and took to spackling it liberally over the prince’s face.

“Princes don’t have scars.”

Niles smiled. “Clearly.”

Leo looked and sounded tired.

“When I give you an order, a _clear_ order, I expect it to be followed — not _interpreted_. If you can’t do that, you’re no use to me.” His hand came up to close around Niles’ wrist — but Niles was somewhat surprised to find that there was no pressure to it, no force in his grip. He merely moved Niles’ hand away from his face, then let go. He sighed, like Xander had earlier. “I won’t tell you this a third time, because my father won’t overlook it twice. You will not speak against my father or Iago. Not seriously and not in jest. Not here and not in Hoshido. Not when you’re half-drunk and not when you’re sober. Not to my sister or to my brother or to anyone, at any time, ever. You will show good manners in my father’s presence and, unless he calls upon you to speak, you will hold your tongue. Are these orders clear to you?”

The prince lifted a washcloth from beside the basin and began wiping the remains of drying blood and used vulnerary mixture from his face. Whatever his cool attitude, he looked pale and shaken.

“Yes, my lord.”

Leo nodded his acceptance of this, then turned away to face the mirror, inspecting himself for any last signs of damage. “Good,” he said with finality, when he was satisfied that his face was healed and he’d said what he meant to say. “Get out.”


	3. But All Was Locked and Barred

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Not everyone went around quite so full of themselves. Most, probably, couldn’t have been bothered to care. But it was a few, here and there, especially the soldiers. It was enough to remind Niles of what he was — and that he was only playing a part, here._

Weeks passed. Castle Krakenburg grew used to Niles — and Niles grew used to this new flow of people and the ways they talked about him. Being poor, being in a street gang, Niles had occasioned the odd jeering from some noble or other, if his filthy self happened to be in the path of their carriage — but otherwise gutter trash was as invisible to the quality as mud itself. He was something to be stepped over. Now his station had improved decidedly, and this had paradoxically resulted in a greater degree of direct, idle scorn. Cooks and butlers, people who used to have no reason to notice him, now resented his elevation to their level or above it. He was a thief in tailored clothing still, and not fit to give his life in service of the royal family. There were rumors he was working his way through bedding all the stable hands (actually, he’d only touched two of them), and that he had diseases and fleas. At best, they simply spat _retainer_ at him with accusing sarcasm, like it was a challenge for him to have to prove himself one.

Not everyone went around quite so full of themselves. Most, probably, couldn’t have been bothered to care. But it was a few, here and there, especially the soldiers. It was enough to remind Niles of what he was — and that he was only playing a part, here.

There were still plenty enough of them to provide a warm bed at night, on the occasion that the desire seized him — and others who’d knuckled under to his well-affected charms and made some form of welcome to his company during the day. Marta the old laundress only occasionally swatted him away when she was working, but mostly let him sit on a pile of fresh linens and chat with her, so long as he took his boots off first. Percy in the kitchens always let him pilfer snacks at odd hours. Even a prickly, hateful creature like Niles found people to pass the time with, in one way or another.

Mostly, though, it was Leo he spent his days with.

Leo, who’d barely spoken an idle word to Niles in the weeks since the banquet. Leo, who found some way to work the word ‘business’ or ‘job’ or something like it into every conversation with him. Leo, who managed impressively to avoid nearly all eye contact with someone who spent most of his waking hours within a few feet of him. If Niles had found Leo oddly withdrawn before the banquet, now that looked like nothing by comparison. Gone were the curious little inquiries into whether Niles’ room suited him, or if he had any particular breakfast order he wanted the cooks to arrange. Now it was only tasks he wanted Niles to get done, lessons he was expected to learn.

At the end of every week, Leo made a point of giving him a pouch of coin — his salary. He still blushed whenever Niles said something salacious, but there was no comment or reproach; the prince simply pretended not to have heard. If his blithely ignoring Niles was meant to make some kind of point other than earning Niles’ temporary resentment, he certainly had a gift for packaging that in as a bonus.

Or maybe Niles was such a thoroughly embittered person that anything Leo could’ve done would’ve rubbed him wrong in some way. Niles had always allowed for the possibility that the black stain on his heart was a permanent sort of damage, a poison that bled through him with every coursing heartbeat. Maybe Leo made Niles hate him, or maybe Niles hated him for free. Or maybe he didn’t hate him at all. Niles didn’t know what that looked like anymore.

This unpleasant standoff ended a few weeks later without much ceremony. They were sitting in the library, where Niles was sprawled out across a chaise while Leo sat at his desk. The prince was working away at his tome as usual, tapping rhythmically at his little frowny mouth with the feathered end of his quill. He looked up when Niles got to his feet.

Niles held up one of the books Leo had given to him on that first day in the library. “I’m finished with this one,” he said. It had taken time to get through it, but — with little choice in the matter regardless — he’d managed it all, and as he’d gone along, picking out the words from the arrangements of letters had gotten a bit easier.

Leo blinked at him. “Oh.” He looked a little pleased in spite of himself. “Well done. Did you feel it was — ” he began, but he cut himself off when he saw Niles starting to set the book down on the desk. Leo held up a hand. “Please. I’d like you to keep it until you’ve memorized it.”

Niles raised an eyebrow.

“Father will send me off to war soon,” Leo explained, returning his quill to its stand. This was a repeated refrain with him: that soon he’d be sent to war like his elder siblings. Niles wondered. “But I’m not suited for reconnaissance. If I send you to scout the terrain ahead of our main force, I need you to be able to distinguish one Hoshidan battle formation from another, and to understand what each one signifies. Battles are won and lost on it. I’ll be counting on you for that.”

Niles shrugged and took the book back, sliding it inside his vest. “As my lord commands. I’ll commit it to memory.”

Leo stared at him for a moment, not speaking. He didn’t seem to be evaluating Niles for truthfulness; rather, it was some other question lingering in his deep burgundy eyes.

“You resent me,” he finally said, sighing. “I won’t ask you not to. I only want to be clear on one thing.” His gaze dropped down to the table, to his carefully manicured fingers. “I live a comfortable life here. I have no illusions in that regard. I neither require nor solicit anyone’s pity, least of all yours. But if you imagine the ease of my situation needs to be pointed out to me, you’re mistaken — I don’t need anything so tiresome. I’m well aware of my good fortune.” Leo closed his tome, spreading his hands out across his desk and fanning out his fingers. “You aren’t my first retainer.”

Niles was conscious of being told something other than simply what he was being told; but _what_ was less clear. As with Leo’s exhaustive prattlings about Niles’ _employment_ and the pointed salary payments all delivered with excessively precise schedule, Leo seemed to think he was being cleverly direct. Niles, though, could barely make heads or tails of the point of all this.

Still, he smiled blandly at Leo as though he understood, and fished for the point of all his employer’s ridiculous denseness. “Truly? What happened to the poor soul who came before me? I take it he was too tiresome for my lord’s tastes?”

Leo frowned, perturbed: not like he was insulted, but like it had just occurred to him he’d just come up against some obstacle. “No,” he answered, his voice falling off. His gaze dropped, too: it flickered back to Niles for just a moment, but then away again, a little helpless. “He was kind.” Leo coughed, already rallying himself back to the composure he always strived for. “I assumed I didn’t need to caution you against sentimentality.”

At this, Niles grinned wolfishly. “Perish the thought, my lord.”

#

Leo was a bit easier with him, after that. He still settled the pouch of coins in Niles’ hand promptly at week’s end, and said blandly, “Thank you for the hard work,” but he seemed less put off by simple conversations.

It was Niles that felt nettled, now. Leo had met him as a dirt-poor thief, a wastrel who existed as a pox on the world, and had offered him this position. Whatever he had seen in Niles, it certainly wasn’t anything fine and worthy — he’d hired him just on the basis of Niles being a penniless criminal with good aim. _I assumed I didn’t need to caution you against sentimentality_ rung in his ears, and he pictured himself snapping Leo’s delicate throat for a laugh, or bending his arm behind his back until his shoulder dislocated.

Leo was right. Niles wasn’t sentimental. A person who lived his whole life never owning anything worth paying for didn’t tend to pick up that habit.

And it wasn’t like either of his parents had been sentimental, either.

#

He asked Marta about it, though, a few days later. She was folding bedsheets, and since Niles had just been sitting around, she’d enlisted his help. Niles had never had cause to fold a bedsheet before, considering the decided lack of bedsheets he’d ever been responsible for, but it was easy enough to learn. Marta still criticized.

He put the question to her between one batch of sheets and the next. Her hands were bucket-deep in suds, scraping cloth over a washboard. “What was the princeling’s last retainer like?”

Hard worker that she was, she didn’t slow her washing. She did furrow her brows. “Bradach? Now why would you want to know an awful thing like that?”

 _Because_ , Niles thought, _you just described it as **an awful thing like that**. Because I live for awful things. Don’t you know?_

He gave her an innocent look. “I’d like to know what kind of example I’ve got to live up to.”

She wasn’t convinced. Marta, though, was an unflappable soul; she answered anyway. “He was a good man, our Bradach. A knight like you used to think of them, one of those families that served their lord’s family every generation. Bradach served the late Queen Katerina’s family his whole life — but he never took it ill that Prince Leo wasn’t Lady Katerina’s kin at all. He looked after that boy just the same.”

Niles sat on the stool opposite her, elbows on his knees. The soap had a fresh, pleasant smell. “So what happened?”

Marta started wringing water out of the sheet she was washing, twisting it between her strong hands. Whatever age might’ve tried to take from her, hard work had kept.

“Prince Leo did, I suppose you could say.

“He used to be a spitfire, that one did, once he got out of his shy, sweet years. Had all his mother’s nerve and half her wits, back then — there wasn’t a bruise from his father’s hand he could keep of his face, it seemed like. You know how children are when they get to that age. They can’t resist sassing off. 

“And his father’s always been a bit harder on him than the others, if you ask me.” She sighed. “Then one day came that little Leo gave him cheek one too many times. His Highness looked fit to thrash him so the healers would’ve been working overtime, or so I’m told. Well, old Bradach got it in his head that maybe he could calm the king’s temper, maybe get him to go easy on the boy — so King Garon took up his axe and cut old Bradach clean in half, just like that, right in front of the little prince. And told him he had to learn to behave like a prince of Nohr, or his servants would pay the price for his shortcomings.”

Niles tried to put together this image in his mind. It started with Leo, but not as the obedient son Niles knew him for — as a rebellious teen eager to prove he didn’t fear his father’s frequent backhand, not yet disabused of this stupidity. It added this new figure, Bradach — some kind of perfect, holy paragon willing to lay down his life for an unappreciative bastard child he owed nothing to. Then, last, came Garon cleaving through the whole image, his divine axe splitting man and armor alike.

His mind lingered on Leo’s imagined face, spattered with blood.

“Well, at least that explains it, then.”

“Explains what?” Marta questioned. “What’s this all about, then?”

Niles reached down into Marta’s wash bucket, popping a few of the larger soap bubbles with his calloused fingertip. “It explains why the good prince would hire someone like me. He wanted someone he wouldn’t get attached to, in case he fucks up again.”

The bucket was pulled away from his fingers. Marta looked at him sternly, either disapproving of his conclusions about Prince Leo or just of Niles’ interference with her wash. “I doubt that,” she said. “You wouldn’t know, but that was a good two years ago, or more. He’s learned not to cross King Garon; he minds well now — but his father only has more of a temper every year, and he’s never forgiven that boy for failing to be his older brother.” Her hands sank back down into the water. “Lord Leo hasn’t taken a retainer since. We all thought he might never — until you, now.” She slid the next sheet off the pile and into her wash bucket.

‘ _Your bleeding heart is your problem, not mine._ ’

‘ _I won’t tell you this a third time, because my father won’t overlook it twice._ ’

‘ _I assumed I didn’t need to caution you against sentimentality._ ’

Marta was right. It wasn’t getting attached to his retainers that Leo was worried about. 

‘ _It would just be an alias for you to operate under, so long as you’re in my employ,’ Leo said quietly._

_Zero’s response was a laugh. ‘And how long will that be?”_

_‘That depends on you._ ’

He began to understand.

It was there in Leo’s retreats from casual conversations. It was there in the way he fussily pressed coins into Niles’ hand, or how he reminded him at every turn that he was an employee performing a job.

He’d hired Niles because he wanted someone who wouldn’t have any reason to get attached to _him_.


	4. Where Tim the Ostler Listened

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Since the incident at that first banquet, Garon and his retainers had been mostly away from Krakenburg, leaving Niles with little opportunity to accidentally run afoul of Leo’s orders and garner their displeasure. It was, as he understood it, a large part of the reason this particular ceremony had been delayed so many weeks: it was rare for the entire royal family to be in the same place at once._

Niles first discovered that Iago didn’t particularly like him when the sorcerer was standing over him at his investiture ceremony. It was a funny thing to look up at someone who was saying all the right holy words and see instead the look of everyday disdain on their face — but that was people like this, he supposed, even holy people. He’d never known men of the gods to be any genuinely kinder to a starving beggar than other men of wealth or title: just sometimes less apt to get their boots dirty kicking them.

Still, it hadn’t occurred to him he’d drawn the high sorcerer’s notice even enough to raise an eyebrow at. He was surprised to see he registered any reaction at all.

Since the incident at that first banquet, Garon and his retainers had been mostly away from Krakenburg, leaving Niles with little opportunity to accidentally run afoul of Leo’s orders and garner their displeasure. It was, as he understood it, a large part of the reason this particular ceremony had been delayed so many weeks: it was rare for the entire royal family to be in the same place at once.

(Missing was the middle sibling, Corrin, he’d learned from Leo. She was the one that common folk like Niles had the most trouble recalling the existence of. Evidently she lived in one of their northern keeps and had never come to Krakenburg at all.)

Now, though, the entire remainder of the royal family was present, all accompanied by their retainers, thronged in a small prayer room of some kind. Iago stood at the front of the room, at the altar, accompanied by a few of his little mage toadies: a boy and a girl. The boy was thin, with loose blond hair and big, hungry eyes; the girl, looking more of a cleric, had red hair beneath a giant hat and smugly thinned lips. Both of them, whenever they chanced to look at Niles, were very clearly judging him. 

Iago did not appear to be judging him. He simply seemed to be disappointed with Niles’ existence.

Leo, standing opposite Niles at the altar, either ignored this or didn’t notice. Leo had always dressed fastidiously, but today he was turned out in clothes Niles assumed were considered royal ceremonial garb for a prince: black satin with gold floss embroidery and precious gems sewn in, an ermine-lined capelet tied over one shoulder and under the other arm, with such delicately sewn lace at his throat and cuffs that Niles imagined it would tear if he so much as touched it with his rough-skinned hands. Heavy ceremonial jewelry hung about his shoulders too, circled his waist as a belt and decorated the tongues of his fancy little shoes. His little black crown remained the only thing unaltered for the occason: an unassuming black band nestled in his hair to proclaim to the world that he was a prince of Nohr — but nothing so grand as _the_ prince of Nohr.

Niles was also dressed for a formal occasion, fitted head to toe in black and gold Nohrian livery to show his place as a servant of the royal household. The knotted cravat, which Percy from the kitchens had helped him with, felt like a hand encircling his throat. He imagined it was Garon’s heavy gauntlet. He imagined it was Anankos’ talons.

There was time for none of that, though — so instead he kept his gaze and his mind focused on Leo.

“I am a prince of Nohr, anointed by the blood of the Dragon of Wisdom. By my divine right, I name this man a servant of my household, bound to me for the rest of his life —” Here Leo flinched, though so minutely that it was barely a stuttered blink, nothing their audience might notice. Niles felt the specter of dead Bradach standing in his shoes, wearing his clothes. “ — and of mine,” Leo finished.

Iago nodded his approval of the recitation, then held out an open palm. The blonde mage at his side scurried forward to press a knife into his hand. Iago unsheathed the knife and stepped forward to hand it to Leo, folding the prince’s fingers around the handle. His hands lingered; and then he stepped away again. “Then let it be written.”

The cleric girl followed behind him, carrying a golden goblet she passed into Niles’ waiting hands. Niles held the goblet out towards Leo as he’d been instructed.

“I forge this pact by my own hand and my own will, sealed for all eternity by my blood.” The knife flashed and Leo drew it across his palm, bringing up a sharp line of welling red. Leo turned rosy-cheeked and swallowed hard, still looking at Niles: and Niles was arrested for a moment by that look on Leo’s face, until he made the choice to look away. Blood was running down the heel of Leo’s hand and dripping into the goblet. Everyone waited, the cleric hovering closeby.

Iago took the knife back and began cleaning it with a fine cloth.

When the goblet was sufficiently filled, Leo lifted his hand away and held it out sideways. The cleric was ready with her staff, mending his hand to perfection again. She cleaned his bloodied fingers before moving away.

Iago cleared his throat and spoke again. “May your bond be witnessed by the eyes of the Silent Dragon, and made incarnate by the strength of his sacred blood. By Anankos’ will, you shall never falter in service of your lord. Supplicant, drink and be remade.”

_Drink and be remade._

Niles looked at Leo for a long moment, then brought the goblet to his lips.

#

Leo began to take Niles out riding on a daily basis. Krakenburg itself was a cramped place, not suitable for much beyond a trot; instead, they went out from the palace into the meadows just beyond the city. Here, land was open and the world was quieter than anything Niles was used to; it put him in mind of nights spent lying in wait for unsuspecting travelers along the main road. Even there, though, there had been the wind in the leaves of the trees, the chittering of bugs and the quiet calls of forest creatures. Here, there was barely more than a bird or two swooping overhead, and those few sparrows that fluttered past hadn’t much to say to each other.

Here it was just Niles and Leo and their whickering horses.

Well, Leo’s horses. He owned at least twelve of them, as far as Niles could tell — for reasons that were not immediately obvious, given that Leo was only in possession of a single, tiny rump. As was often the case, it fell to Leo to explain his mind in his own time.

Half of the reason for their daily rides was Niles. Niles, who’d never been the sort of person who could afford to own and stable a horse, had little experience of them; Leo had insisted he learn. He’d put Niles on what appeared to be his most reliable and favorite mount to start with: a chocolate brown and black gelding named Krim that seemed singularly unimpressed by Niles’ uncertain seat, but only occasionally cast its baleful glance over at Leo as though to wonder why it had the wrong rider.

Leo, sweating in full practice armor, was seated on one of the lighter brown mares — either Giulietta or Azoychka, Niles couldn’t remember which — and though he had the rolling grace of movement of someone long accustomed to horseback, he leaned forward regularly to offer the horse a reassuring pat on its neck or a light scritch behind the chin: far more contact than Niles had ever seen the young prince make with any human of his acquaintance, even his sisters.

“You’re very sweet with your pets,” Niles observed, offering him a half-smirk. “One wonders what tricks they employ to earn such shows of affection.”

Leo colored a little — he always did, when Niles said something laced with layered intent — then looked away, at the spot between his horse’s ears. “I like for my horses to think of me as safe. They have to be comfortable with me,” he said, reaching down to his side to unlatch his ever-favored purple tome from where it hung in a special holster from his belt. He rifled through its pages, then closed the cover again, gliding his hand over its surface.

Niles felt a sudden, unaccountable feeling of falling, his stomach rising slightly in his throat; then a huge tree burst forth from the ground a scant few feet where their horses stood.

Krim, for his part, accepted this development impassively. His tail swished back and forth slightly, but he made no attempts to buck his rider or veer from the course Niles had set him on.

Leo’s horse, happily, didn’t rear up or attempt to throw him off either: but she danced sideways for a few uncomfortable steps and looked agitated. The prince leaned forward again to offer her quiet, soothing words and a steady hand until she calmed.

“All our military horses are trained to work around magecraft,” Leo explained. “But Brynhildr is different. Stronger.” He moved his hand over the book again, tracing the spine, and there was that weightless feeling again. The ground around them seemed to come loose: small rocks and chunks of dirt began floating in the air around them. “The effects on gravity can be severe, and the horses need to be able to work through that. My horses are mostly used to it by now, but I try to work with all the horses in our stables. If I ever lose Krim or the others, I need to know I can take a new mount without getting thrown.” He smiled a private smile. “I’ve even got Xander’s awful stallion mostly sorted now. And a pony for Elise, when she’s a little older.”

Niles took this all in. It painted a better picture of why someone would have such a large and well-tended horse collection without any particular adoration for horsemanship — and it served as a reminder of what Leo was always insisting on, the ever-delayed possibility that Garon was going to send him to war.

It occurred to Niles that this had always struck him as a strange thing for Leo to be on about. He realized, now that he had begun to know the prince a bit better, that it was because he was having trouble reconciling it with Leo’s personality. 

Leo was a quiet genius, that much was true — and he preferred the comfort of his own company. He believed in hard work. These things were genuine. But where Leo also put effort into coldness and rationality, ruthlessness and distant resolve, those weren’t things he _was_ — they were things he strove for.

The Leo that Niles had begun to see was shy and unsure, a turtle encamped within itself for its own safety. He felt things deeply. He was proud, he became prickly when insulted; and when no one was looking, Niles thought he sometimes seemed profoundly weary. He took beatings sometimes for things he hadn’t actually been responsible for, just to spare his younger sister from their father’s temper. His older siblings praised him awkwardly for it. They never told him he didn’t have to.

Did Leo obsess so much over the possibility of being sent off to war because he was eager for it? Or was it because he was dreading it?

Either way, no one had ever seemed so grimly determined to be ready.

“Do you practice with the wyverns too?” Niles asked, thinking of pretty Camilla and her ferocious beastie. She was less involved in the war effort than Xander was, but already she was said to be a brutal menace on the battlefield, an axe in one hand and a tome in the other.

Garon had sometimes gone to battle on a huge black wyvern when he was younger, according to the stories. Niles had seen the holy axe he still carried with him in person now, the one that had cleaved his predecessor in half. It looked large enough to reach a foe even from dragonback; so Niles believed it.

Leo shook his head. “No, I can’t ride them,” he said. “I tried once — Brynhildr’s gravity is too much for them. It drops them right out of the air. I broke a few bones, and the wyvern was hurt so badly it had to be put down.”

Perhaps Niles shouldn’t have laughed; but that was how he was, so he did.

#

When they got back to the stables, Iago was waiting for them. Leo tensed in the saddle, losing some of the rocking, graceful movement Niles was so used to trying to emulate when the two of them rode out together.

Krakenburg was generally safe: but because Leo was on guard, Niles felt it too. 

For whatever reason, Leo had always been particular on the point of Garon’s retainer Iago. Although Hans theoretically held much the same position as the high sorcerer, it was only Garon and Iago that Leo ever included in his warnings to Niles about minding his behavior. It was clear that Iago had a great deal of influence within Garon’s household: but Prince Xander and Princess Camilla only seemed to treat him as an inconvenience, a distasteful appendage. Leo always treated him as a threat.

Niles supposed Leo’s studies of magecraft gave him a better idea of what Iago might be capable of, that perhaps his less clever siblings simply didn’t know better. It was hard to say. Leo only rarely saw Iago outside of magic lessons, and he never brought Niles with him for those.

“Welcome back, Lord Leo,” Iago greeted them in his too-sugary voice.

“Good afternoon, Iago,” Leo answered him with careful balance.

“Did you have a pleasant ride?”

Leo dismounted, Niles following after. “Yes, thank you.” He fixed Iago with a haughty look. That was one of those things Niles found amusing about Leo, in a high-born sort of way: he had a knack for radiating an air of disdain even when he was anxious or unsure. “Is there something I can help you with?” 

Leo began leading their horses into the stable, forcing Iago to either follow or be left standing alone. Iago followed. He glanced down at the ground frequently, afraid of stepping in some errant pile of dung and dirtying his fine gold boots. It was a moment before the sorcerer could look back up at Leo and smile, but he managed it.

“I’d hoped we might discuss your schedule, milord.”

There was a pause, and then Leo raised his pale eyebrows. “I take it you received my request to reschedule our lesson, then?”

“Oh, yes, quite promptly. Milord is ever so considerate. Only . . .” Iago smiled apologetically and lowered his eyes, demure: but there was no demureness in it, and no true apology. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible. My work for your father keeps me quite busy, you see, and as much as I’d like to accommodate you, there’s so very much to be done around the castle since our last castellan met his unfortunate end.”

Leo rolled his eyes. “I’m sorry to hear you’re so overworked, Iago. Well, take a break, then. It’ll have to be next week.”

Iago stepped in closer. His face was all concern, now: but Niles, who was making himself look busy brushing down Krim, saw something else in the sorcerer’s jaundiced yellow eyes that belied his toadying. Interest: like a starving man planning his first stolen meal. “Oh dear,” Iago told Leo, exaggerated. “Your father would be so disappointed to hear that you’re not keeping up with your lessons.”

Leo turned back to his horse for a moment, lifting away the saddle, and sighed. “Of course you’re right,” he said tiredly, still facing away. “I’ll keep our usual appointment, then.”

Iago clapped his hands together, grinning. Niles understood that look. Here was a man who was starting to enjoy his newfound power over people he could take advantage of. “Excellent,” the sorcerer pronounced, and then — probably not wanting to walk back through the much of the stables — he waved a hand and vanished.

Niles, who’d been instructed to be exceptionally mum on the subjects of Garon or Iago, raised his eyebrows and waited for Leo to look up at him. “Everything alright, milord?”

Leo shook his head. “It’s fine.” He paused, seeming to think about it, then added: “You’re doing very good work, Niles. Thank you for your continued service.”

And what Niles heard now, just like every time Leo shoved some comment about employment or service into a conversation, was:

_Don’t get attached to me._

#

Leo only ever dressed in his formal mage robes directly before a magic lesson. Niles, who was accustomed to seeing Leo dressed conservatively in all his fine frippery, could understand why: the robes themselves were fanciful and more than a bit raunchy, half the panels cut from sheer black fabric and clinging to the skin. Even a young noble as proud as Leo couldn’t carry them off without some degree of well-earned shame.

Where most of the mages roaming Krakenburg wore blood red, Leo’s robes had been custom made in midnight blue; otherwise, though, they seemed to meet the standard. The prince was always back in his normal clothing when he came to fetch Niles after his lessons were done. He always clutched his tome modestly to his chest while he hurried down the halls to where Iago was waiting. And he always tried to look like he wasn’t hurrying.

Sometimes, when Leo had a lesson, he left other work for Niles to do — one of his books to read, some letter-opener to be sharpened, whatever he thought of. Other times, he let Niles use the time at his leisure — which usually amounted to distracting Percy or Marta from their work for a few hours, or else traveling outside the castle grounds and into the city to spend some of his newly earned money. He had his own clothes, now, things he’d picked out: and a selection of different quivers depending on how he wanted to wear his arrows.

Today was unusual; today, because Leo had been unsuccessful in rescheduling his lesson with Iago, Niles found himself unsure how he was going to spend his free time. Marta never worked this early in the day, and Percy was nowhere to be found, which left Niles with only the option of finding someone else to torment, if he opted for human company. Niles decided he didn’t. He walked the length of the castle grounds for a while, practicing learning the pathways once more, looking for nooks and crannies he could tuck himself into if he ever needed to defend against an assault. There were a few likely places — some alcoves with deep shadows that would be as good for an ambush as for a nighttime tryst — and it was some time before he noticed that it had begun to rain heavily outside.

His instinct, as it always was, was to pull up his hood over his head and try to keep himself dry until he could find some shelter from the rain. But he lived in Castle Krakenburg now, he remembered, not the gutter: so he tucked himself back into one of the shadowed alcoves and relaxed on a bench, listening to the gods’ tears spattering their sorrows against the castle’s stone walls.

He was stirred from a rare and quiet reverie by the sound of voices: Leo’s, which he could recognize easily, by now; and Iago’s, which was notable by its trumped-up simpering tone. The rain must’ve driven them back inside, too, cutting their lesson short. Niles sat up and moved deeper into the shadows, alert and interested. He got few opportunities to observe Leo without the prince knowing he was being watched.

“We had hoped you would choose one of our mages as your retainer, of course,” Iago was saying. “Zola’s quite capable — or even our Daniela. She’s a cleric now, but she has the makings of a fine strategist someday. I’m sure that would suit you.”

Leo drew to a stop and looked Iago squarely in the eye. “I’m a mage,” he said coolly. “I have no need for an inferior version of myself. I wanted a field scout, and I chose one. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but your people can’t offer anything to me that I don’t already have.”

Iago clucked his tongue, disappointed. There was that look again, though, a bit too desperately interested: and his milky, thin-fingered hand came carefully up beneath the layers of Leo’s cloak to press against the small of his back.

Leo froze, his hands tightening white-knuckled around his tome, and looked like he desperately wanted to run away. Niles thought he probably could — wasn’t he a prince, after all? But instead he just stood there, looking disgusted and put-upon.

“The prince is so thoughtful,” Iago said with his usual toadying — but he stood closer to Leo now, his voice lowering to match their proximity. “It’s only that I had hoped, _we_ had hoped, that you might appreciate the value that our sorcerers can offer. You know as well as I do that, as hard and as selflessly as I work on your dear father’s behalf, he’s never had much appreciation for the role of sorcerers on a battlefield except as distractions. Your brother’s just like him. Few people are in a position to elevate the status of modern sorcery — but you, milord, a mage yourself. You know the ridicule and depredations we suffer.” He leaned in. “You know how lonely and misunderstood this life can be.”

Leo turned his head to the side. The blank, studied look on his face reminded Niles of what Leo looked like when he was at dinners with his father: striving for the appearance of calm, dignified indifference. 

Black hair hung across Iago’s face, as it always did: but his one exposed eye was sharp and heated, alive with longing. This was a very personal sort of interest.

Niles knew men like this, rich men who hung their hopes on young boys who couldn’t afford to refuse them. Wretched weaklings who fancied themselves in love with working girls and boys whose vulnerability and acquiescence made them feel powerful. As a prince of the realm, Leo was nothing so vulnerable as that — but wherever Iago, went, it was Garon’s shadow he cast: and Leo’s weakness was that he and all his family had bent themselves into shapes that knelt to Garon’s will — even just the shadow of it. Leo was young and pretty and isolated, with siblings that had already proven their hesitance to risk anything on his behalf and a father who held him in questionable esteem. Niles guessed that was enough for a particular sort of weaselly opportunist.

“You’ve always been so alone, haven’t you,” Iago cooed softly. “I can understand that. I want you to think of me as your friend — if you ever want to talk.”

Leo turned red — angry, humiliated, frightened — and finally managed to wrench himself away, drawing up to his full height. He spoke through gritted teeth. “I’m not in need of a friend. You’re mistaken.”

“Oh, dear!” Iago said again. He did back up, looking deterred, and dropped his hand — not yet confident enough in his power to press his advantage as he had with Leo’s scheduling conflict. _Your father would be so disappointed to hear that you’re not keeping up with your lessons._ The sorcerer frowned, his violet-lipped mouth thinning. “Forgive me for presuming such a thing. Of course a prince of Nohr has many friends.”

“Thank you for the lesson,” Leo said stiffly. “And for your concern. I’m sure your students will still have many opportunities to excel in the service of Nohr.” He bowed, but shallowly: as befit manners rather than any sort of inferior station. “Please convey my regards to my lord father.”

It was a poor end to the conversation, hasty and forced — and if Iago had wanted to, it was clear he could’ve stopped Leo from leaving still, whether with another veiled threat about King Garon or not. But Niles supposed the sorcerer had pressed as much as he dared for the day; he bowed and let Leo leave without argument. “Milord is an excellent student,” he said, doting. “And a pleasure to instruct. I’m sure your father will be pleased to hear of it.”

Relieved, Leo departed.

Iago didn’t warp himself away this time. He walked.

Niles waited until the sorcerer’s footsteps faded out of hearing, and then longer still. When he was satisfied that Iago was long gone, he finally left his hiding place and began making his way back to Leo’s rooms.

#

Oftentimes, when Niles was in a mood, he found someone with soft flesh and a bad personality to dig his nails into. There were satisfactions he could try, people he could tear down. Archery targets he could shoot at again and again, until black punctures overtook the red of the bullseye.

When Leo was upset, though, he studied.

Niles found Leo alone in his sitting room, seated at his desk with a book open. He was dressed in his own clothes again, with a shirt collar that laced all the way up to his chin. Brynhildr was nearby, off to one side on the desk. The prince looked up when Niles entered.

“I didn’t think you’d be back so soon,” Leo greeted him, blinking. “I thought you might go out into the city.”

Niles looked at him for a long moment. “I needed a restful afternoon,” he said. Then, before he could think better of it: “Your teacher certainly takes an interest.”

Leo’s eyes went wide. If there was any color left in his face, it fled. “It’s nothing,” he said sharply. “Just pathetic fawning. He’s a coward — he’d never do anything. He just wants to curry favor.”

Niles wondered if Leo really believed a stupid notion like that. Sometimes it was like that with Leo; he told himself a version of reality that could be objectively minimized and dismissed, when the truth of it troubled him more than he wanted to admit. He smiled at Leo, bitter and dry. “You and I apparently have different experiences of how cowards behave when they’re given power.”

Leo closed his book to look up at Niles fully. The alarm on his face was shifting, replaced with aggravation. “I said it was nothing,” he repeated. “I’d rather you spend your time more constructively than to behave like some kind of prurient gossip. Iago is beyond your reach or mine — I thought I’d made that clear.” 

Niles sat on the edge of the desk, picking up a paperweight and turning it over in his hands. “Quite clear,” he said, looking at the paperweight and wondering what Iago would look like with blood pooling in the corners of that sickly yellow eye. It was a satisfying thing, to kill a rich man, to watch him quail in terror and question his worth. Too bad, then, that he wasn’t allowed.

“Then let this go. It’s nothing for you to concern yourself with.”

Niles supposed that was true. He’d never really been a person with much goodwill toward his fellow man, least of all the nobility. A child like Leo had never crawled in the mud begging for a meal, doubled over in pain from not having eaten for days. He’d never walked the streets unprotected, never doubted his safety when he risked closing his eyes for long enough to sleep. A father’s heavy hand and a teacher’s lonely pawing were hardly even worthy of Niles’ notice — certainly not enough to rouse him to pity.

But Leo didn’t ask for his pity, or even his help — and that much, at least, Niles admired. He smiled. “As you say, milord. I’m yours to command.”

Leo squinted at him. Whatever he saw satisfied him; he nodded once, then reached down to take something out of a desk drawer. He produced a pouch of money and set it on the desk where the paperweight had been. “By the way, here are your wages for this week,” he said, looking relieved and satisfied with himself. “Thank you for your hard work and dedication.”

#

Niles sat down at the long wooden table, causing the young boy already sitting there to jump back. It was satisfying; but Niles smiled at him like he wasn’t aware of the flinch he’d caused.

“It’s Zola, right?” he asked.

Missing eye or not, Niles still had a good smile. It had taken him some time to track down the blonde mage from the investiture ceremony and discover his schedule; but Percy knew nearly everyone’s mealtimes. Now, as though by happenstance, Niles and Zola were both side by side in the kitchens to get dinner for themselves.

Zola was short and slight, and he looked at Niles with distrust. “ _Zola_ ,” he said, as though Niles had mispronounced it.

“I’m Niles.”

The young mage looked maybe two or three years older than Leo, probably about the same age as Lady Camilla. He did his best to look sure of himself, but the way he scooted away from Niles along the bench said otherwise. “I know who you are.”

Niles lifted a forkful of potatoes to his mouth. He hadn’t taken much food — just enough to ensure it was a short conversation, and it wouldn’t look strange when he got up to leave. “Yes, that’s right, isn’t it,” Niles said, as though it were just occurring to him. “I’d heard you were hoping to be considered for my position.”

Zola pushed the peas around on his plate. “Lord Leo was supposed to choose me as his retainer,” he insisted. “Master Iago said I was the most qualified for it. If he’d chosen a sorcerer for it, it would’ve been me.”

Niles finished another bite and looked at him sidelong. “Is that what he said? Well, that’s interesting.” He speared another potato wedge with his fork, twisting it idly in the air.

Zola frowned, narrowing his big eyes at Niles. “ _Why_ is it interesting,” he demanded to know.

Some people really were too easy to lead. “Oh, it’s just that he seems a bit relieved you weren’t chosen, if you ask me. I thought he must be a bit attached to you. You are rather cute, after all.” Niles turned to face Zola and grinned. “And to imagine that sweet face, kneeling up to me every day as a devoted acolyte… Well, I wouldn’t have blamed him.”

Zola flushed beet red. “Don’t proposition me, you degenerate! I-I’d never consider you!” he stammered, scooting farther away on the bench again. “Don’t say those things to me. You’re beneath my station!”

As expected. Well, it would’ve been bothersome if Niles had miscalculated and wound up having to bed this little idiot. Niles popped the last piece of potato in his mouth and stood back up. He took his plate with him. “That’s too bad. Well, if you change your mind,” he said. “You know what position you can find me in.” Then, with a smirk and an insouciant bow, he left.

#

Unless he’d missed his mark entirely, little Zola would worm his way into Iago’s greasy bed within the week. He’d certainly laid it on thick enough to plant the seed of the idea, if it wasn’t already there. Leo had told Niles not to make trouble for Iago, and he hadn’t — but there had been no rule against doing the high sorcerer and un-asked-for and secret favor. No wolf ever complained if you threw it a steak.

Still, Niles wasn’t sure why he’d done it, afterwards. Sending a man like Iago a willing distraction wasn’t going to deter him forever from the unattainable prize he coveted. The only difference it made was a little bit of time. Power went to every man’s head eventually, and Iago was clearly already aware he’d amassed quite a bit of it. His fear still held him back somewhat, still lent Leo’s cold rebuffs enough weight to keep him at bay for the time being — but none of that would last forever. Men like Iago, once they’d tasted the idea that they could have something they wanted, always came back for a little more each time. All Niles had really done was to delay the inevitable wickedness of mankind from falling onto Leo’s shoulders quite so soon. In the grand scheme of it, it changed nothing. It accomplished nothing. It meant nothing.

Even so, he’d done it anyway. He couldn’t say why.


End file.
